This book examines how industry-desired employability skills—or “soft skills”—are taught and learned in high school career and technical education (CTE) engineering and engineering technology programs. Identifying, recruiting, and keeping workers with strong personal and interpersonal skills is a constant challenge for STEM employers who need to hire young workers to replace an aging technical workforce. To answer the call, teachers interviewed explained that they maintain regimented daily classroom routines that include individual and small group hands-on activities and projects. In turn, their students explain learning personal responsibility, work ethic, teamwork, leadership, conflict management, and social skills in the classroom. Narratives from the workforce and classroom interweave to put employability skills frameworks into action.

This book is more than a prescription for success in developing employability skills and provides guidance on topics of relevancy to the employment environment. This book is unique and distinguished from similar books in that it provides a hand-holding approach which is complemented by solid case studies emphasizing the perspectives of employers. In addition, the book focuses on a broad-based audience, starting from the grassroots audience of graduates. However, as the book progresses, the techniques provided address issues that relate to any job seeker, be it jobless or merely seeking change of employment. The audience will benefit from models such as Skills Audit, Interview techniques and the whole employment process from pre-interview preliminaries to completing a successful probationary period.

Foster confident, well-rounded, career-ready students. Written for teachers and administrators, this targeted guide introduces the Youth Employability Skills (YES!) framework, which has been adopted by schools across the United States. Learn how to use this powerful framework in a multitude of courses to ensure students develop the essential attributes and soft skills needed to become thriving members of the global workplace. Use this resource to foster collaboration and problem solving that will benefit students in the professional realm: Consider nine essential employability skills and how to foster each in students. Benefit from a comprehensive framework that includes activities, instructional strategies, and resources. Align with the mandates of the Every Student Succeeds Act to prepare students to succeed in college and careers. Gain an understanding of educators' roles in connecting students to the vast possibilities and opportunities ahead of them. Examine real-life examples as well as supporting research and evidence that the YES! framework is effective. Contents: Acknowledgments Table of Contents About the Authors Preface Introduction Chapter 1: The Impact of Regulations on Employability-Skills Education Chapter 2: Communication Chapter 3: Teamwork and Collaboration Chapter 4: Critical Thinking and Problem Solving Chapter 5: Relationship-Building Know-How Chapter 6: Resource Management Chapter 7: Growth Mindset, Resilience, and Grit Chapter 8: Ethics, Values, and Integrity Chapter 9: Networking and Interview Savvy Chapter 10: Career-Pathway Preparation Epilogue Appendix References and Resources Index

Employability Skills emphasises the need for job seekers and students to create their own individual standards and brand in order to compete successfully in today’s highly competitive and volatile marketplace for jobs. It is just as important to be able to market yourself as it is to secure your degree. In todays’ job market having a degree is just one piece of the puzzle. A good degree no longer sets you apart from other candidates – this book will provide you with the tools and techniques to allow you to gain and communicate the range of employability skills and behaviors that will make you stand out from the crowd and get the job that you want. Outcomes: · Learn what employers want and how to show what you can offer. · Identify & gain the employability skills that you will need. · Create your own unique employability brand and communicate it to employers.

This book will provide readers with an understanding of the employability concept and develop an employability skills improvement model to enhance the employability of built environment graduates to foster economic development. The developed model determines the influence of generic skills, discipline specific skills, work-integrated learning, emotional intelligence, university-industry collaboration outcomes and 4IR knowledge in predicting the outcomes of improved graduate employability. The model is developed with a theoretical lens on existing frameworks of employability and skills development. Whilst drawing comparisons with countries such as the UK, USA, Australia and Canada, the authors present the results of a two-stage Delphi survey in South Africa as a case study on the current state of skills development and on the skills of the future. The case study is presented in line with the South Africa’s long-term National Development Plan (NDP) aimed at developing the key capabilities and skills of its citizens by ensuring quality education on a broader scale by 2030. As automation continues to rapidly advance, the pressures on universities to revamp and restructure their curricula have become increasingly necessary. This book recommends that higher education institutions urgently need to intensify their efforts by introducing significant modifications to the science and technology curriculum to enable students to develop and acquire competencies in the rapidly emerging areas of artificial intelligence, data science, robotics, advanced simulation, data communication, system automation, real-time inventory operations, cloud computing, and information technologies. This implies that universities’ curriculum should be infused with 4IR thinking within the conventional primary sciences of biology, chemistry, and physics, with greater emphasis on digital literacy to boost 4IR understanding amongst the graduates. The book is therefore of interest to researchers and policy makers in the built environment that are placed in academia, the construction industry or at consultancy levels, it provides significant recommendations for universities as they intensify their efforts to develop graduates for the future.